The board of directors of Symantec Corporation asked a consultant for an independent opinion on an important financing decision. Symantec had been working with several investment banks on a plan to raise debt to repurchase common shares. The consultant found it to be an interesting financing plan; whereas repurchasing shares immediately would increase Symantec’s financial leverage, converting the notes in the future would reduce leverage at a potentially .....more

Teaching note for product 9B11N008.

In December 2009, about a year after it suffered a crisis when clients walked away from massive derivative losses, Gulf Bank’s new CEO is trying to change the governance and operation of Gulf Bank. This case focuses on a turnaround situation and provides students with insight into evolving corporate governance standards in Kuwait. After assessing the situation that the CEO faces, students have to decide what change he should pursue and how he should .....more

The executive director of an independent charitable foundation is thinking about whether to hedge his foundation's U.S. dollar exposure given the large swings in the Canadian dollar-U.S. dollar exchange rate. For the past four years, the weakening U.S. dollar has contributed to underperformance in the foundation's portfolio relative to its peers.

Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are derivative instruments that allow investors protection against credit events such as downgrades of or defaults by single-name or a basket of obligors. Estimated by the Band of International Settlements to be at $32.6 trillion in December 2009, these instruments represent one of the largest and fastest growing financial product markets globally. This note is intended to introduce students to CDS, the pricing basics .....more

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has put in place a strong governance structure to ensure that excess contributions (by Canadians) can be invested with a singular mandate - to maximize the rate of return without undue risk of loss. In September 2009, a private member's bill seeks to regulate Canadian government agencies' dealings with Canadian mining companies operating in developing countries. A senior manager at the CPPIB .....more

This case focuses on the issue of corporate governance in the Middle East. A senior official at the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) is looking at a recent transaction in which Qatar Telecom (Qtel) acquired National Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC (Wataniya). The KSE official wondered whether, at the company level, inadequate corporate governance measures had allowed this alleged unequal treatment to pass unchallenged. More importantly, at the .....more

An analyst at an investment firm is considering an investment in Carmanah Technologies Corporation (Carmanah). Carmanah is a fast-growing player in the high-powered alternative energy products. Since 2007, when the new chief executive officer (CEO) took over, a turnaround effort has been in place at Carmanah. At $0.91 per share, Carmanah's shares were trading at just 23 per cent of their value in mid-2007. The analyst is scheduled to make a .....more

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is asked to provide an opinion about the risk and return characteristics of an all-equity portfolio. The CPPIB is analyzing the potential of investing in other asset classes because of the potential for increased returns over the long-run. The Canada Pension Plan's assets currently completely comprise federal and provincial bonds and short-term securities.

This case provides students with a deeper understanding of commodity futures markets in general and natural gas markets in particular. It also provides an introduction to hedge funds and insight into the largest hedge fund collapse in history. Third, it introduces such concepts as liquidity risk, value-at-risk, spread trades and the use of derivatives. As of the case date, Amaranth had not publicly disclosed the positions that led to $6 billion .....more